


Calculus

by rock_lee



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6558376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rock_lee/pseuds/rock_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's scrolling numbers until the variable shows up. </p><p>The variable always changes the equation.</p><p>| aka "Garrus Still Struggles With the Side Effects of Drugs After Omega" / shakarian |</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ok so this is for all of the readers out there who r pissed at me for not updating Relay 314. i'm sorry i'm a procrastinator to the extreme :-(  
> disclaimer: i'm really bad at math so idk why i wrote this i hated calc

_ I won’t become a number in the system. _

 

Calculus. It was always so… cold. So distant. It was too large to consider so seriously. Numbers that grow or shrink with only one variable, one unknown that tips the scales like nothing else could. 

 

Variables like the geth. Like Saren or Cerberus. Cloaked fiends like the Illusive Man or Kai Leng. Monsters that mess up the entire equation like the Reapers, like the Leviathans. 

 

Then, there is the other variable that fixes things, changes the ever rising number of the dead and dying. The variable that beats back the force, forcing the numbers to stop growing, fighting the written laws of mathematics. 

 

Variables like Commander Shepard and her team of broken vigilantes, of mercenaries, of biotic warriors and people who would kill with their bare hands.

 

She’s the game-changer. The wrench thrown in that no one expected.

 

His chest hurts. It burns actually. Garrus can only think of math, or scrolling numbers late at night on the screen, building and growing, wondering how many of those numbers he knew-

 

_ “Stay with me you dumb bastard!”  _

 

She was a number once. It hurts to remember, but she had been dead too. She had scrolled past him but he had been too deep in grief to see the facts: variables don’t die. They can’t be subtracted - they’re part of the equation. 

 

Commander Jane Shepard doesn’t just disappear. She always comes back, like a vengeful spirit. 

 

The buzzing in his ears was too loud to be comfortable. Had another rocket hit him? His head hadn’t felt this bad since she came back. It felt like he should be back mourning over his dead squad, trying to focus but not being able to with all the stims pumping in his polluted veins. 

 

_ “If you go, I’ll bring you back and kill you myself.” _

 

Spirits, he loved her. Was she dead still? Had that all been a dream? It’s hard to remember what was real back then - Red Sand is strong shit. He always hallucinated about her. Maybe the stress, the Sand, the stims, the blood had finally gotten to him.

 

_ “Shepard,” _ that was the doctor, the human who threatened to put him under everytime he came in for stims. That was after the rocket. Was that a dream too?  _ “Please, I need you to step back or I’ll have James restrain you.” _

Fuck, everything hurt. A hand, something with five lithe fingers - fingers he remembers on his carapace, clawing at his waist - brushed against his mandible. _ “Don’t let him die. Please.” _

 

_ I won’t become a number in the system. _


	2. Chapter 2

When he wakes up, he wants to die. His stomach is stiff and sore and his head feels like it was shoved into a vacuum chamber. His scars feel new, but the press of a rough gauze is nowhere to be felt. 

 

He remembers nothing. No, he remembers something. Her face in his scope from across the bridge, her armor on the infested surface of the moon. Her eyes full of mirth, under the sheets, pressed against him. Her fingers cool against his face. 

 

“Jane.” His throat is dry and raw, but he needs to say it. He needs to know where she is, where his heart has gone. Is this another trick of the mind? Withdraw from the sand and the stims had hurt him more than he would care to admit. Nothing is ever certain anymore. He lapses into memories or things he wishes could have been. 

 

The phantom voice makes his eardrums pop. “Garrus!” He feels the jolt on the bedside and he forces his eyes open. It hurts too. Blurry and bright, the world doesn’t come into focus until he lets his head drop to the left. 

 

If this is a dream, the Universe is more fucked up than he thought. 

 

She’s leaning over to him, hands already up and cupping his face. Her face - usually wearing the mask of the Commander - is open and fearful. Fearful but relieved beyond belief. Her cool fingers almost feel too real against his face.

 

“You fucking idiot.” She ducks her head against his cowl and releases a long exhale. “You have got to stop catching explosives. Please.”

 

“Is this real?” His voice cracks and he swallows the dryness away. She looks up at him and he wants nothing more than to touch the red of her hair, the pink of her lips. He instead stares into the green of those hard eyes.

 

Her lips form a thin line. “Yes. Is this another one of those?” He vaguely recalls telling her about his hazy recovery, his gentle but aggressive weaning off of drugs. He remembers telling her he might not know when things are real.

 

He says nothing but closes his eyes instead. Her fingers slid off his face, down his neck and then trail to his hands. She fits her fingers in between his like she always belonged there. Maybe she did.

 

“You took a frag to the front. Severe concussion and major wounds to your midsection. I had to perform some serious medical shit on the field to keep you alive.” Her hand squeezed his. “Unfortunately, this is very real.”

 

Not a number. Not another name on the wall.

 

He sighed and his lungs ached. He's alive. This is real. She's really Jane.

 

He closed his eyes and drifted back off with only one thought. 

 

_ The variable always changes the equation. _


End file.
